Chapter Eleven

They rode all night. They struck a vast intertangling of ­gullies that the rains had ripped out of the heart of the plains. No better hiding places could have been wished than these labyrinths, but they were useless to men who were being trailed by dogs, and always, sometimes dying down to a dreadful whisper, sometimes blown loudly along the wind, they could hear the music of the hounds.

Rusty could remember them well. Bloodhounds, and a few common mongrels and fox hounds, were at the nose of the pack. Greyhounds were the far-striking missiles, as it were. And in addition, there were a number of powerful brutes, cross-bred between greyhound and mastiffs, and strong enough to fight bears, savage enough to kill men. They were regularly exercised and trained by capable handlers at the fort, and the dog pack was, in fact, Major Marston’s contribution to Indian fighting. No trails were blind on which the dogs could run, and more than once he had been able to follow a party of raiders to a great distance, striking them when they were blinded by their sense of security.

The two Cheyennes, as the dawn came gray over the plains, were plainly worried. They said: “The white war chief has many men, father. He has two horses for each man. His heart is angry, and he will drive his men like eagles across the sky. We are not going fast enough. Is Sweet Medicine to give us strength, or turn us into clouds?”

There was no irony in this. The Cheyennes had seen Rusty in so many strange scenes that they had in him a more than implicit confidence. Rusty answered with a vague gesture, because his heart was beginning to grow heavy. Turn them into clouds? Well, White Horse, at any moment, could go blowing over the round side of the earth, beyond pursuit. But with the other ponies it was a different matter.

They had left the entanglements of the badlands, now, and the sweeping prairie was before them. And as the dawn grew, the condition of the horses could be studied. They were very far spent, indeed. Their heads were down, their backs were beginning to roach up, and their bellies to pinch—all sure signs of exhaustion. Moreover, their fierce eyes were beginning to dull.

They came to a wandering rivulet, and there Rusty ordered a halt to let the horses drink a little. Not enough to weigh them down, only time enough to loosen the girths for a few moments, and so perhaps give the ponies new heart.

But when they mounted again, the far tremble of the dog chorus was drawing nearer, across the green waves of the prairies, and the horses, as they trotted forward, had little more life than before.

Rusty drew up again. “There is only one way,” he said. “Two of us must face the danger . . . two of us may escape. Broken Arrow and Little Porcupine, draw away to the right. I go with my white brother, to the left. If I am lost, give your hands to Standing Bull. He is my friend of friends. Farewell! Go quickly.”

So they split into two parties, and gave up all hope of making a real battle. Four armed men may fight against numbers. Two men are soon lost.

But as they parted, the four men looked at one another with eyes that went deep. In turn, the two Cheyennes took big Bill Tenney’s hand. Then Broken Arrow bowed his head before Rusty.

“Father, pray for us,” he said in his own tongue.

Rusty looked up, and raised both hands to the sky. “You behold us, Sweet Medicine,” he said. “Give us the thing that is in your heart.”

After that, they divided. The two Cheyennes were soon lost over the wavering green. And from the rear, the noise of the dogs came gradually beating, nearer and nearer.

“Are they following the Injuns, or are they taking after us?” asked Bill Tenney anxiously.

Rusty shook his head, and continued to listen. “They are following us,” he said finally.

“Damn them,” groaned Bill Tenney. “And damn a short-legged worthless runt of a horse like this here.” He beat the mustang as he spoke, but the pony failed to rock into a responsive gallop. Instead, it stumbled heavily, fell to a walk, and then raised a mere dog-trot. Its sides were heaving bellows. Its nostrils could not widen enough to take in enough of the life-giving air.

“We are ended, brother,” said Rusty, calmly, as he halted White Horse.

Bill Tenney stared at him with wild eyes for a minute. Then he jerked the mustang to a halt, in turn, and flung himself out of the saddle. A jerk on the reins, and the heavy thrust of his shoulder forced the pony to lie down.

“If they get me, they’re gonna pay for me . . . and pay damn’ big!” shouted Tenney. He shook his fist toward the increasing chorus of the dogs. “They’re gonna pay blood for blood, damn their rotten hearts!” he shouted.

Rusty slipped from White Horse. He stood with his arm around the head of the great stallion, and absently stroked the face of the horse. Then he said: “This day is my day, brother. It was your day when the river was taking me. It was taking White Horse, also. As you drew him safely to the shore, so he will carry you away from danger now. Take him, friend.” He smiled as he spoke.

Bill Tenney, staring, could see no bitterness in his companion’s face. “You’re talking, partner,” said Tenney. He began to breathe like a man who has been running with all his might for a great distance. “You don’t mean what you say. Besides, how would I be taking your horse and riding off? How would I . . . ?”

Here the beauty and the glory of the stallion filled his eye and his soul, and silenced him to a gasp.

“One day,” said Rusty, “Sweet Medicine will be kind to me again. He will bring me back to you and White Horse, and then I shall take him. Take him now. Take him quickly, because they are coming close. And I must tell White Horse that you are a friend, or else he will not carry you.”

The noise of the dogs, creeping closer and closer, made a riot in Bill Tenney’s brain. He seemed to see a campfire, with men seated around it, and he seemed to hear a deep man’s voice saying: “And this here hound . . . this gent called Tenney . . . he takes the horse that his partner offers him, and he just rides off and leaves Rusty Sabin alone to be grabbed. And the soldiers, they sure murdered Sabin, after they got hold of him.”

“Quick!” urged Rusty.

Here a thin trickle of tired-looking dogs came over the crest of a low, green wave of prairie land, and behind them rode the heads and shoulders, the horses of several riders. Thirty men were soon cantering on that trail.

“My God, they’ve got me,” groaned Tenney, and he flung himself hastily into the saddle.

Under him the stallion crouched low, and, when that set of lithe steel springs reacted, Tenney knew that he would be hurled into the sky. Good rider that he was, he knew that he could not sit half a minute on the frantic back of White Horse. But a few words from Rusty made the big horse stand straight again. He turned his head, blowing his breath, shining his angry eyes at Tenney, till Rusty took the man’s hand and laid it on the stallion’s face.

“Be to him as you are to me,” said Rusty.

As a child speaks to an animal—a child not sophisticated enough to believe that beasts have no understanding—so Rusty spoke to the stallion.

Out of the distance they heard the dim shouting of men who saw, at last, the prey they had toiled for so long.

“Take him easily,” said Rusty. “Speak to him a great deal. He will serve you now, and carry you. Start now, brother.”

He held up his hand, and Bill Tenney seized it with a frantic grasp.

“I’m wrong,” said Tenney. “I shouldn’t do it. I’m a hound. But . . . my God! What’d they do to me if they got me a second time? Rusty, so long! Good bye. God bless you.”

He turned the stallion. White Horse made a few steps, then he halted, looking back toward his master. But a shout that came cheerfully out of Rusty’s throat made the big animal break into a canter—a gallop—a racing stride that kept the chunks of turf dancing in the air about his head like little flying birds. Rusty watched him going like a streak that diminished in size, then the wavering surface of the prairie covered him from view.

From the other direction, the beating hoofs of the many horses thundered down upon him, and before them the dogs strained forward in full cry. He looked down at the mustang, which still lay as if dead on the ground.

Bill Tenney had intended to use that living breastwork and fight from behind it, forgetting that he could be surrounded and picked off from the rear. But Rusty had no intention even of making resistance. He was not good with a rifle; he never had been good. Indians are not famous marksmen with firearms, although among the Cheyennes there were always plenty of warriors who could surpass Rusty with firearms of all sorts. And so White Indian simply faced the advancing charge, and with his eyes he selected the form of Major Marston, riding first of all.

Far to the rear there appeared other horses—undoubtedly the reserve herd out of which the major would have remounted his men, if the goal had not been reached. But what would he do now? To follow White Horse would be an act of perfect folly. The two Cheyennes were gone far away, and were beyond pursuit. And out of four men there remained only one for the major’s wrath to consume.

Then the dogs came in, leaping furiously at Rusty. He shouted and raised his hand, and they shrank to either side of the human quarry. And there was the major, towering above him on horseback, reining his excited, tired horse, glaring down at the calm face of Rusty.

The soldiers, too, were sweeping up.

A voice from a young lieutenant called: “Shall we go on, sir?”

“Go on after what?” snarled the major. “After a streak of lightning? Don’t be a damned fool, Wells.”

Lieutenant Wells strained his eyes at the point, far away, where a dissolving point of white could still be seen. He made no answer, for it was plain that they might as well try to catch birds out of the sky with their bare hands as to hunt for White Horse.

“You weren’t man enough to keep your horse, eh?” said the major to Rusty. “You let him take your horse away from you, eh? That’s what he is, eh? The fellow whose hide you saved?”

But a sergeant broke in to say: “There wasn’t no fight, sir. I seen it all. He just give Tenney his horse. He give him the stallion. I watched, and I seen him standin’ at the head of the horse. I never seen nothin’ like it.”

“Keep still!” commanded the major angrily.

It would have been better the other way. It would have been a great deal better to take Rusty Sabin back to the fort and spread word that, like a coward, he had permitted his companion to take away the horse by force. But this thing of voluntarily giving up so famous a stallion, would it not make Rusty even more of a hero than ever, in the mind of Maisry Lester?

Aye, and in the minds of all the other men in Fort Marston, too. That was why the major glowered as he sat the saddle and stared down at Rusty Sabin. Quick and keen as his mind was, he did not know at once how he would be able to handle Rusty to the best advantage. But in his very soul there was an iron determination to wring out of Rusty enough wretchedness to make up for the shame that the major had endured the night before.

He could not see his way clear. There were legal methods, of course, but his own methods would be more to his personal taste. He had the desire to raise his quirt and slash Rusty across the face with it, right now. He wanted to flog this blacksmith all the way back to the fort.

Instead, he merely forced himself to smile, and commanded that for the return march the captive be mounted between two of the troopers.